Looks like N scale standard gauge (versus Nn3) was a good call. Saw the neurologist again today (yep, on Christmas Eve) and after getting zapped and needled, she said things have gotten worse. I will likely need surgery in the spring on my right (modeling) hand to prevent further nerve damage. Yay me! Oh well, it could be a lot worse. It's not cancer, not diabetes, or anything else. If all goes well I might even get more of my motor function back.

Very cool project; will be following with interest. The bach-person 4-6-0 is a great locomotive, giant tender aside. I've heard that some have swapped it for the stock bachmann USRA small tender with very little hacking and sawing involved.

Chris333's tender mod is attractive too, if you are into doing that amount of bashing.

DKS did a rework of my plan in roughly that space for a member of here in that space, don't know if it's still online or not,

I don't even recall doing that, let alone what it was called... and I doubt I could find it among the 1000+ track planning files I had--emphasis on had--as I believe they may have been archived somewhere on a 2TB backup drive...

I have no idea if this is any interest. But, while trying to keep myself sane, I scribbled a bunch of fantasy track plans, with a halfhearted intention of possibly starting one. Nothing much came about, but one of them seems to be in vaguely the same vein as this project: the Tin Cup and Forked River. I reworked it from handlaid to Code 55 N scale track, and it sorta fits the 2.5 x 5 foot space mentioned.

Obviously curves are tight (minimum radius ~11 inches), grades are steep (>3.5%), and trains are absurdly short. Since it's N scale track, you'd either have to go with N scale standard gauge, N scale faux narrow gauge, or get really daring and try HOn3. But the latter might require even steeper grades, so I have no idea if this is even workable. I just thought it had a lot of character. Oh, and obviously it's not roundy-round, so that might put it in the circular bin straight away.

For students of the Midland I'm thinking instead of Arkansas Junction to Leadville, doing Basalt to Aspen. The Walthers "Clarkesville" depot is a dead-ringer for the Midland's Basalt depot (and is very similar to most of the Midland's stations). Aspen had a large smelter.

Actually, it needs a pair of passing sidings to be anything more than a diorama...

Going back to my thought about doing Basalt to Aspen, Basalt had a little engine facility there to serve the Aspen branch. Basalt is where the mainline coming down the Frying Pan River valley from Hagerman Pass met the Aspen branch and then paralleled the D&RG into Glenwood Springs.

The Midland depot at Basalt:

It's still there and has been lovingly restored in a pretty dark red with greenish-gray trim. I really don't know what the right colors are, but I'd use the Clarkesville kit. For my era (~1905, give or take a decade on either side) I'm thinking buff and brown, similar to D&RG(W).

I like this plan, considering the space it has to fit into. One thing I might try to make it a little more fun to operate (and it would add capacity by being a place to hold a train) would be to take that track that is buried under the layout and heads off at the bottom and try to convert that into a reverse loop in the tunnel.

So, imagine this: You are operating a train on the loop in a counter-clockwise direction. Then, you can go up the branch, switch the town, reverse your locomotive on the wye, and build the train to head downhill. Once you come back down, you are going clockwise around the loop. There's nothing you can do but reverse movements at this point, unless you add the reverse loop, which would allow you to turn your train and head back up the mountain at some point. It will be tight to get the reverse loop in and you might have to go with a Peco curved turnout to fit such trackage in, but, with access built in to the fascia, I wouldn't hesitate to put a turnout under there. It is a small layout, so any derailments in there would be easy to deal with. Just don't let Ed and his stick at them.

My trestle was 9.75" R and on a 2.5% grade all scratchbuilt. Used ME bridge flex that stayed curved after bending. I flipped it over and added the bents upside down and slightly un-straight to match the grade.Forgot about my Railimages

/>I know I said 12" R on the mainline, but it could have been 11" or 10".